A study on emotions in communication and culture

The title of the research paper, is presented as a theoretical paper for the study. The research paper will outline and discuss a method of emotions in communication that mingled with cultural perception. The aim of this method is to integrate recent developments in emotions research into a communication-theoretical framework in the study.

Cultural studies of emotions originated from anthropology, sociology and psychology. The first accounts of emotion from a cultural perspective were ethnographic, and described emotions as idiosyncratic. Researchers such as Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson and Jean Briggs described unique emotional phenomena and stressed emotions as culturally determined. For example, Briggs lived among the Utku Inuit and described a society where anger and aggression almost never occur, despite the common western notion that anger is a primitive universal emotion. Although these ethnographic studies point to considerable cultural differences, no general conclusions can be drawn from them regarding what cultural aspects affect emotions, or what level the culture influence. For example, it might be that the same emotions are experienced by all human beings; however the events that evoke them or the reactions they cause differ across cultures.